Frank Castle’s one-man war on crime is going mobile. The skull-chested vigilante known as the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) drove a gun-metal black tactical battle van in Marvel’s The Punisher, which was equipped with an arsenal of various military-grade weapons that, at times, have turned the streets of New York City into a warzone. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day currently filming in Glasgow, Scotland — which has been transformed into MCU New York, recently seen under martial law in Daredevil: Born Again — Punisher’s Battle Van is receiving an upgrade.
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New set photos show the all-black van emblazoned with the Punisher’s skull emblem on the hood, along with a certain red-and-blue hood ornament: the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (Tom Holland). Officially released behind-the-scenes footage showed the wallcrawler atop a moving tank, and now onlookers have captured footage (below) of Spider-Man hitching a ride on the hood of the Punisher’s van in hot pursuit of a six-wheeled armored vehicle.
The snippet of Brand New Day footage raises more questions than answers. Is New York under military occupation because former Kingpin of Crime and current Mayor Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) declared martial law in his war on illegal vigilantes in Daredevil: Born Again? Or might the presence of tanks and armored vehicles suggest Silver Sable and the Wild Pack, the Symkarian mercenary group known for its serious firepower? And is that demon-like symbol spotted on the tank hinting at Mr. Negative and his Inner Demons, or the more sinister Mephisto…?
As we await answers about the next entry in the Punisher’s war journal, it’s worth pointing out that — like the Punisher himself — his Battle Van first appeared in an issue of Spider-Man in the ’70s. The Punisher drove a nondescript “combat van” (a converted TV repair van) in 1975’s Giant-Size Spider-Man #4, which saw Spider-Man and Punisher team up against the weapons manufacturer and arms dealer Moses Magnum to get a deadly experimental gas off the streets.
Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Wonder Man) directs Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which costars Bernthal’s Punisher, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, and Michael Mando’s Mac Gargan/Scorpion, with Sadie Sink cast in an undisclosed role. It’s set to be a more street-level story following Doctor Strange’s spell that erased all memory of Peter Parker and his secret identity.
“[As] sad as it is that Peter is forgotten by everyone in his life, we are seeing, for the first time in the Tom Holland Spider-Man stories, him being a proper Spider-Man,” producer Kevin Feige told ComicBook and other outlets during a press event pegged to Fantastic Four: First Steps. “Him being by himself, dedicated to saving the city, and dealing with, for lack of a better term, street-level crime, as opposed to world-ending events that he faced when working with the other characters.”
Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters July 31, 2026.
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Image courtesy of Netflix
